On State Interference

(This is the final paragraph from an essay by William G. Sumner (I have divided it for easier reading).

"I therefore maintain that it is at the present time a matter of patriotism and civic duty to resist the extension of State interference. It is one of the proudest results of political growth that we have reached the point where individualism is possible.

Nothing could better show the merit and value of the institutions which we have inherited than the fact that we can afford to play with all these socialistic and semi-socialistic absurdities. They have no great importance until the question arises: Will a generation which can be led away into this sort of frivolity be able to transmit intact institutions which were made only by men of sterling thought and power, and which can be maintained only by men of the same type?

I am familiar with the irritation and impatience with which remonstrances on this matter are received. Those who know just how the world ought to be reconstructed are, of course, angry when they are pushed aside as busybodies. A group of people who assail the legislature with a plan for regulating their neighbor's mode of living are enraged at the "dogma" of non-interference.

The publicist who has been struck by some of the superficial roughnesses in the collision of interests which must occur in any time of great industrial activity, and who has therefore determined to waive the objections to State interference, if he can see it brought to bear on his pet reform, will object to absolute principles.

For my part, I have never seen that public or private principles were good for anything except when there seemed to be a motive for breaking them. Anyone who has studied a question as to which the solution is yet wanting may despair of the power of free contract to solve it.

I have examined a great many cases of proposed interference with free contract, and the only alternative to free contract which I can find is "heads I win, tails you lose" in favor of one party or the other. I am familiar with the criticisms which some writers claim to make upon individualism, but the worst individualism I can find in history is that of the Jacobins, and I believe that it is logically sound that the anti-social vices should be most developed whenever the attempt is made to put socialistic theories in practice.

The only question at this point is: Which may we better trust, the play of free social forces or legislative and administrative interfer­ence? This question is as pertinent for those who expect to win by interference as for others, for when­ever we try to get paternalized we only succeed in getting policed."

State Interference, William Graham Sumner, "The Wisdom of Conservatism," pp 1596-1603, Institute for Western Values, 1971.